Jenuflection rolls on

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Our Bible text for today is from the Book of Lamentations 2:7.

"The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD , as in the day of a solemn feast."

Exciting news! Big changes are coming again at St Jensen's, and all for the better. At long last we have rid ourselves of the St Jensen's boys' choir which, for so many years, has been such a noisy nuisance at Evensong, interrupting our Bible study with hymn singing and the like.

Indeed, we have scrapped Evensong itself. Inspired by those wonderful words from Lamentations, our Dean, the Very Reverend Matthias Jensen, has sent the choir packing, along with its surplices and hymnals and other popish affectations such as the altar. This will create a wonderful new feel for our Bible Study Space (or the cathedral, as it was formerly known).

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And now, step forward the Cromwell Corps! The Archbishop-for-Life, the Reverend Dr Nesbitt Jensen, has announced the formation of an exciting new youth group at St Jensen's, named after that inspirational Puritan soldier for Christ, Oliver Jensen Cromwell.

Under the vigorous leadership of our young people's counsellor, Canon Obadiah Jensen-Slope, the Bible-believing men and women of the Cromwell Corps will vigilantly root out deviant practices in worship and errors in Bible study. No more bells and smells at St Jensen's! Parishioners caught flouting the new guidelines will be asked to leave forthwith (in all Christian charity).

Now some notes for your diary. Our Women's Subordination Commission meets each Tuesday evening under the guidance of Mrs Hepzibah Jensen. Our next topic: Equal but Obedient.

And this Saturday, pop along to our St Jensen's garage sale and pick up a piece of antique colonial church furniture no longer needed in our Bible Study Space. Cedar pews, stained glass windows, brass lecterns, fonts and missal stands, etc, all at bargain prices as St Jensen's marches on. FOR the first time this century, and probably the last, I found myself on Tuesday agreeing with P. P. McGuinness and his description of the release of the federal budget as "one of the most boring and pointless rituals of the year".

Spot on, your worship. The hype has swollen to ridiculous proportions. It is a great bladder of hot and malodorous gas, in the Government, in the Opposition and in the media.

Peter Costello has been lazy and negligent. With the exchequer awash in an unprecedented surplus of billions, he could have and should have attempted bold reform in areas from tax policy to health care, instead of just fiddling with bracket creep.

One day we will look back on this budget as a priceless opportunity squandered in favour of a cynical pre-election bribe.THERE is no more empty gesture than a politician, in deep trouble, proclaiming that he takes full responsibility.

Donald Rumsfeld, in more trouble than a pig in a minefield, attempted that sinuous diversion into damage control as he struggled to explain to a US Senate committee the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad.

"If there's a failure, it's me," he allowed. "These events occurred on my watch. As Secretary of Defence I am accountable for them, and I take full responsibility."

Which means what, exactly? Nothing, so far as the world can judge. Not a can of warm spit in a hurricane, to borrow Rummy's own folksy Illinois style of rhetoric.

For all his protestations of "responsibility" he remains at the apex of the American military pyramid, warmly endorsed by his President as a truly great Defence Secretary, "doing a superb job". So far, it is only a handful of junior enlisted soldiers, privates and sergeants, who are being dragged before courts martial to answer for the abuse and torture and, it appears in some cases, the rape and murder.

Yet Rumsfeld is the ultimate control freak, according to Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack. He micro-manages. He involved himself in every finicky detail of preparing for this second Iraq War, driving his generals to distraction by constantly "drilling down", as they say in one of the vogue phrases of this Bush Administration. If it was happening or not happening, Rumsfeld demanded to know about it.

But, somehow, dadburn it, he just didn't have a clue what his interrogators were up to in the cells at Abu Ghraib or, for that matter, at Guantanamo Bay. Knowledge of any abuse never got beyond "the command level", as a Pentagon heavy testified to the Congress. This despite the investigation by the US Army's Major General Antonio Taguba, which found systemic abuse, and other reports from the International Red Cross complaining of gross and continuing violations of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

We do not know what other horrors are to come, although it seems there will be many. If taking responsibility means anything at all, there is a case to make that Donald Rumsfeld himself is a war criminal.

At the very least, if American honour is to be salvaged, he must resign or be fired.

A wedding that lifts our spirits

The execution of that young American in Iraq, Nick Berg, is so barbaric that any comment here is superfluous, beyond the truism that violence begets violence.

Michael Berg, his father, said he held George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld equally to blame with al-Qaeda. You can see his point.

That murder, and the other news of the week has been so dark that the royal wedding in Denmark has been balm for the brain. I have lost count how many times the venerable "fairytale" cliche has been given a run.

Regular readers will know I am not a monarchist. I would be shot of Elizabeth Windsor and her dysfunctional brood with a snap of the fingers. Give me liberty or give me death; bring on the Australian republic, and the sooner the better.

But this royal marriage in Copenhagen is attractive on two counts. First, here is a handsome couple demonstrably in love. He, the dashing heir to the oldest throne in Europe. She, yer down-home Tassie good sort who scrubs up beautifully in silk and diamonds, to the manner born.

And second, the Danish Glucksborgs seem to have retained something of the royal mystique that the Windsors have lost with their vulgar brawls, bed-hopping escapades, ostentatious wealth and ridiculous insistence on 18th-century grovel.

The only hint of Glucksborg scandal has been a whisper that Queen Margrethe's husband, Prince Henrik, might be gay. But as the royal reporter for Denmark's biggest tabloid, Ekstra Bladet, assured everyone on Friday: "He's not gay, he's just French."

Surely even the most fervent republican could manage a toast to Fred and Mary.